


Ministerial Cooperation

by maat_seshat



Category: Ghost in the Shell, Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Competency, Gen, Government Backstabbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-31
Updated: 2012-07-31
Packaged: 2017-11-11 03:23:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maat_seshat/pseuds/maat_seshat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Chief Aramaki trapped in a combat situation and Major Kusanagi holding down the diplomatic fort, Secretary Takakura gets a little opportunistic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ministerial Cooperation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sleepfighter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepfighter/gifts).



> Set during 2nd GIG, wedged sometime between episodes 6 and 10, and containing specific spoilers for episode 5.

This disaster was only a disaster because she couldn't trust her own cabinet, and Kayabuki Yoko knew it. That didn't change the situation she faced as she rose to greet the woman knocking at her door. "Please, Major, come in," she said politely. She nodded to the guard outside her door and stopped him with a single raised hand when he moved to enter anyway. "I think Major Kusanagi is fully capable of guarding me from any assassins," she added tartly. "Since she has done so once already, under much less secure circumstances than an office with bullet-proof, reinforced glass windows."

The Major stepped through the door, expressionless, but Kayabuki thought she saw a hint of inquiry in her posture as she stepped past the guard and closed the door behind her. Kayabuki beckoned her forward when she would have stopped just inside the office. Now, the Major cocked her head. "I assume after that display that you know he's in the pocket of your Cabinet Secretary?" Her voice was low, pitched not to carry, and Kayabuki inclined her head in agreement.

"Who will be here to speak to you within five minutes. We don't have much time." Kayabuki stood straight, resisting the urge to fidget with papers on her desk. Mastery of her body language was one of the tools that had paved her way to the leadership of a cabinet that thought it could control her and was grudgingly learning wrong, but Motoko Kusanagi's control put even her to shame. "You know the situation: we've lost contact with both Chief Aramaki and the Section 9 members accompanying him to Kagoshima. What he was not permitted to tell you is that it was a fact-finding expedition at the behest of Colonel Kubota. There should have been no danger attached; the interviews were merely politically delicate enough to mandate someone of his connections."

"And yet there seems to be a great deal of danger attached," the Major said mildly.

"Which, Secretary Takakura will tell you, does not change the political calculus. Unless you can offer a surgical strike, you will not be permitted to take any of your field team in." She met Major Kusanagi's eyes and let her face say what she would not say with words: Takakura wanted Aramaki out of the way and neither Kusanagi nor Kayabuki herself had Aramaki's encyclopedia of where the bodies were buried to pressure him. The Major's plan would have to be watertight.

"Understood, Madame Prime Minister." Her voice was calm at ever, and her gaze assessing. "I assume that you've disabled surveillance devices in this office?"

Kayabuki smiled tightly. "Yes. I can't leave the official feeds off for much longer, though, and I'm afraid the unoffical ones will be repaired or replaced within an hour of the next time I step outside this office." Few people simply assumed that Kayabuki knew how to handle surveillance, despite how vital a skill it was in the cesspool of modern politics. She was reasonably sure even Takakura thought she was using Section 9's resources to engineer her blackouts, and she hadn't done anything to disabuse him of the notion.

"Ishikawa," the Major said to the air, and Kayabuki realized she was being permitted to hear, "I need to know everything there is to document about the situation down in Kagoshima, and I don't care how legal your access is. I want you to chase down any scrap of a connection this might have to Cabinet Intelligence. Paz, back him up. Batou, see what you can get Kubota to tell you, and make sure he pressures local JGSDF and other response forces not to move in. Try to be polite about it. Saito, Borma, you're on standby; assume we'll be moving out in an hour." The Major's eyes refocused on her. "Well, Madame Prime Minister, shall we face the incoming Secretary? I'm sure he and the Home Affairs Minister will enjoy their own anticipation of success for the hour or so it will take my team to dig this information up."

Kayabuki felt her smile become a little more genuine. "I will enjoy your company," she said, and it was the most honest statement she had made in a long time.

* * *

"Why is it, Chief, that every time I go on a investigation for you without the Major involved I wind up in trouble?" Togusa concentrated more on his breathing than on his words, trying to pant as quietly as possible in their discreet corner of the run-down government building. Chief Aramaki was his _father's_ age; Togusa was a little ashamed that the man could nearly outrun him. 

"I would certainly love to know," he replied blandly, then eyed Togusa with calculation. "How long ago exactly did you lose contact with the prime minister's office?"

Togusa rechecked his internal clock before answering, "Exactly thirty-seven minutes ago. I don't think our attackers had the equipment to monitor actual cyberbrain transmissions, or they would have waited for me to finish our conversation." 

Aramaki nodded. "In that case, I think we can expect a rescue two to three hours from now, which leaves us with a certain amount of planning to do."

Togusa frowned. "It's a half-hour flight from the capital. Even with response time, they should be here within an hour."

Aramaki shook his head chidingly, and Togusa stfled a much less mature grimace. "You mustn't forget the politics of the matter. I trust the Prime Minister to deliver the appropriate information and the Major to be her efficient self, but they'll both have to persuade the Cabinet to allow them to move. One must allot at least an hour to gather the necessary leverage."

This time Togusa did sigh. "Blackmail, really? You know, I could have lived without knowing just how illegally the wheels of government turn."

"Little hope of that," Aramaki assured him. "Now, we've already escaped one trap, but they'll be pinpointing our location soon. I think our best option is to switch buildings again, try to keep them off-balance."

Togusa listened a little dubiously. "I'll try, Chief, but you _do_ have the least martial member of the team here. My revolver won't do us a lot of good."

Aramaki waved him off. "If we're shooting, we're losing, anyway. At most, that gun of yours should be a distraction."

Togusa half-bowed, as well as he could wedged into a tiny cul-de-sac that was probably a defunct boiler room or some such. "I'm listening."

"Good." Aramaki handed him a cyberbrain lead, and he inserted it. "Pull up the building schematics that I just gave you," ordered the voice now in his head. "We're going to start by using the sewers, and work our way randomly through each point of access between buildings, try to stretch their manpower as far as we can. They don't have enough people to cover every potential exit, especially if they aren't sure exactly which building we're in. At the moment, I believe this is our best route." He highlighted a zigzagging path on the 3-D schematics, then began to elaborate, with the same economy of words as the Major, exactly what he wanted Togusa to do. Togusa silently promised himself he would _find_ more gym time after they got out of this. This would require a lot of running. And climbing. At last, Aramaki finished, "Any questions?"

"If we're separated?"

There was no hesitation in Aramaki's voice, despite the fact that he wasn't even armed. "Rendezvous at the entrance to every new building on the half-hour. If we miss each other, plan for the next. Anything else?"

Togusa sighed. "At least I know I can make the shots you want."

Aramaki clasped his shoulder quickly. "Remember, only two and a half hours we need to evade them. Just make them cautious."

Togusa took a deep breath, trying to breathe in his confidence. "Yes, sir."

* * *

She gave no warning. One moment, Major Kusanagi was listening with every indication of helplessness to the Home Affairs Minister's self-satisfied explanation of why no one could afford to exacerbate the situation by sending in a military-grade armed force. The next, she had straightened in a subtle shift of body language so commanding that the minister's words died in his throat and he didn't even appear to notice.

"I thank you, Mr. Secretary, and you, Minister, for your thorough explanation, but my team has just informed me that witness reports describe attackers who fit the profile of the so-called Divers, a burglary syndicate also known for its ransom-kidnappings and occasional abductions-for-hire." Minister Shibata still looked vaguely stunned at how thoroughly she had seized control, but Takakura's eyes were wary and flared at the nearly imperceptible emphasis the Major placed on _hire_. Kayabuki doubted he had ordered any attack on Aramaki--it wasn't subtle enough for him, really--but she equally doubted that he could be _sure_ none of his underlings had done so on their own initiative, and a quick glance at the Major told Kayabuki she had noticed the same thing. "I assume the Cabinet Intelligence Service has a dossier on them," she said pointedly.

Takakura looked torn between preserving CIS's aura of omniscience and evasive denial. "I will request that they compile the information," he said grudgingly. "Until then I'm afraid I cannot say."

"And local surveillance?" she asked. "Did you receive any information from them before this meeting?" Her almost inhumanly level eyes dared him to lie.

"There seems to be some confusion over where exactly the attackers are choosing to focus their energy."

"Then does it appear the attackers were able even to keep Chief Aramaki and Togusa pent up in the building in which they attacked them? After all, they've twice shifted their focus to new buildings."

Takakura winced perceptibly at this proof of Section 9's intelligence-gathering and attempted, "We cannot be certain Aramaki is their target."

"Is there anyone else in the area who might be a mobile target? Or are the men they were tasked to interview accounted for in a separate part of the city?"

Kayabuki watched, amused, as both men reeled. They had gotten a little too accustomed to Aramaki's silk-gloved manipulation, she judged, or her own deceptive agreeableness. Major Kusanagi's questions were challenges that demanded answers that Takakura gave in spite of himself and Shibata couldn't even gather himself enough to address. Kayabuki tuned out the rest of her interrogation, listening with only enough attention that she should be able to recall the information if necessary, and instead focused on the body language of the men across from her and the woman beside her. Unless she was badly mistaken, the Major would have them begging Section 9 to clean up the situation within fifteen minutes. She resisted the childish itch to time it.

* * *

Togusa eyed the rickety catwalk over to the next roof, only half-visible from the window of his current position, and consoled himself that at least it hadn't dropped Chief Aramaki when he crossed. Of course, Togusa himself would be running and possibly dodging bullets if their attackers reacted quickly enough, but they hadn't demonstrated a great deal of intelligence thus far. Three members of their team down, at least one dead by a shot dead center mass, and they had only just begun to grasp that he didn't stay in the building from which he shot. With luck, it would take them another three before they realized that he was choosing exits on different sides of the building from his sniping position, and by then the rest of Section 9 would have arrived, and he wouldn't even need to reload his revolver. 

Togusa shook the wool sharply from his tired mind and focused on the snatch of movement to his right. He sighted carefully, ignored the vague wish for cyber eyes, and fired. Then he took off running. He had two floors to go up. 

The welcome sound of a familiar airplane engine filled his ears as he burst out onto the roof, nearly drowning out the single quickly-silenced cry of fear that indicated Saito finding targets. He ducked low and watched Aramaki stand--recklessly--upright on the other roof, while the Major landed beside him with a delicacy that seemed incongrous with the shards of concrete he could see spitting up from her feet. 

"Major," Aramaki's voice carried clear and confident. "Excellent timing as usual."

The Major stepped forward, close enough to tackle him if she spotted anything suspicious, and even from dozens of meters away, Togusa could see her body language was wary. But her voice carried with equal confidence. "I'm afraid you'll have some ruffled feathers to soothe back at the capital, Chief, but I'm glad we arrived in time."

Batou landed beside him, the hum of the plane engine telling Togusa that he'd dropped low enough not to try replicating the Major's feat, but it was still farther than any non-cyber would dare. "Dramatic, aren't they?" he said conversationally. "Especially since we're still doing Cabinet Intelligence's dirty work for them." Saito was still in his perch, systematically shooting. Togusa doubted any of their attackers would be arrested alive, and his cop-trained soul cringed.

"Bad bargains," he agreed, "but they're both making them. I guess we just keep trusting." He watched the Major guide Chief Aramaki over to a relatively protected corner as they continued to talk. He could see only their postures, nothing of their faces, but he imagined that if he could, he would see them wearing matching grim, determined smiles.


End file.
